Picture: The Other Richard
The winner of Musical Theatre Review’s first Best New Musical Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2017, A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad) has launched its first UK tour.
Co-produced by Hull UK City of Culture and marking award-winning Silent Uproar Productions’ first UK tour, the show which also won the Fringe First Award at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, is due to play 27 venues over the next few weeks ending in Derby on 3 November 2018.
Written by Olivier Award winner Jon Brittain (Rotterdam, Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho) with music by Matthew Floyd Jones (Frisky and Mannish), the cabaret-style musical takes an inventively comic look at depression.
Commenting on the content of the show, Silent Uproar’s artistic director Alex Mitchell said: “We wanted to make a show that was entertaining, accessible and discussed depression without being a depressing show.
“From suffering with anxiety and bouts of depression, and seeing friends and loved ones suffer, I wanted something that said ‘do you know what it doesn’t matter if you feel shit today, it’s okay not to be okay. And most of all it’s okay to talk about it because the talking helps.”
Silent Uproar is pioneering ‘Pay What You Decide’ across this tour, a ‘try before you buy’ scheme modelled on initiatives used by entertainment giants including Netflix and aimed at attracting new and more diverse audiences.
The show is supported by NHS Hull Clinical Commissioning Group which has funded performances at the University of Hull and also arranged for the cast and crew to have mental awareness training through Hull and East Yorkshire MIND.
Dan Roper, chair of NHS Hull Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “There is a growing body of research evidencing the positive role of the arts on health and wellbeing. We also know there is a strong link between poverty and mental health, yet low income can be a barrier to accessing the arts. By allowing audience members to pay what they can afford, this barrier is being removed, in effect putting them in control of their own social prescription.
“This particular show has the added benefit of being informed by healthcare professionals, and there will be a team of volunteers from Hull and East Yorkshire MIND available after performances to talk to people affected by any of the issues in the show, and to be able to signpost them to help available.”
Angela Thomas
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